


All is Well

by VeteranKlaus



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Homesickness, Hurt No Comfort, The siblings might as well not be tagged, Underage Drinking, they’re vaguely referred to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 04:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19143841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: Prompt: homesickness.It's been one year, and Five still can't get back home.





	All is Well

**Author's Note:**

> Five is fourteen in this fic, just a little note. Whoops this is really short but oh well. Still long enough for angst. Enjoy!

It's been one year, and Five still can't get home.

He hadn't really known what had happened when he first landed in this apocalyptic time line, but he'd had plenty of time to come to terms with things now. He had seen the world burnt to ash, the air thick with smoke, not a single soul still living. Nothing but Five lived among this rubble, and he couldn't get back. 

Perhaps he should have listened to his father when he told him that he wasn't ready for time travel, but at first it had worked. He had seen the same streets the academy had been built on, only thirty years earlier. He had seen the summer festival of '35, had seen the winter of '49, and there hadn't been a problem at all. Everything had been fine, and he'd laughed in victory, ready to go home and shove it in Reginald's face. Only, his home had been burnt down, nothing but a few remaining walls and shattered glass from the chandelier. The only remnant of his family had been the bodies scattered around, fully grown and murdered. 

It had taken him days to bury his siblings. He was exhausted from the drain on his powers, exhausted emotionally as he sat in the rubble, coughing on ash, and staring at the face of Luther. Luther had bulked up apparently, in the next twenty-whatever years, Luther's super strength completely buffed out his body. Allison's hair had grown out more and she'd shot up in height, looking all the part of a mature woman. Klaus' drug addiction had only gotten worse, evident by the track marks on his arm. He had shot up, too, although he'd always been tall, and he had had eyeliner smudged down his face and a ridiculous outfit on. Ben and Vanya hadn't been anywhere, and he'd certainly looked for them.

Digging their graves had taken ages; measuring them out and digging them deep enough. He'd done Allison's first, struggling to carry and drag his sister to her grave. He'd tried not to cry; he had, really had, but Allison was a grown, beautiful woman, and he had missed out on seeing her turn into this adult, and now she was dead. Less than an hour before seeing her corpse, she had been thirteen years old, rolling her eyes at the dinner table as he argued with their father. He'd done Klaus next. He cut his fingers up moving rubble off his crushed legs and his arms felt like jelly after, and the sight of the blood from his wounds make him throw up. Klaus had been the only one to die with his eyes half-open, staring blindly into the wasteland, and Five had closed them for him. He was surprisingly light for his height, but Five still struggled to pull him over to his grave. He had thought of Klaus a few hours ago, rolling a blunt under the table and acting as if none of them could tell. Klaus, always joking and making them laugh and being the centre of attention, was dead in a hole Five had dug in the ruins of their home's garden. He had had to take a break after getting Klaus into the grave, limbs burning and lungs hiccupping, choking on sobs. He had fallen asleep to the crackle of fire and rubble, laying between the two graves, and he'd continued in the morning.

Luther had been the hardest. He was completely buried in rubble that took Five all day to get off him. He was incredibly tall and incredibly heavy, and he had to drag him the furthest, dig the deepest and longest grave for him, and he felt utterly exhausted when he finally finished all three of the graves. He had sat in front of them, hands bruised and bloody, suit torn, and he didn't know what to do.

Ben and Vanya hadn't been anywhere. It wouldn't surprise him if Ben had died before this apocalypse, however. He never had liked his powers. If his siblings had fought against whatever had caused this end of everything, Vanya probably wouldn't have been there. He wasn't sure he was entirely upset about that. He didn't want to see all of his siblings corpse's. 

That had been one year ago. He'd sworn to himself that, any day now, he'd get back. He'd said that every day for a year, and it had yet to happen. His hands flickered blue and the best he could do was manipulate space, but time always seemed to flow out of his grasp, drifting just out of reach of his fingertips, so tauntingly close. He was simply doomed to live out the rest of his life in this wasteland until he wasted away. Sometimes, it was tempting. When he was sitting in front of the ruins of his home and the graves of his siblings, it was so, so tempting. But he wasn't like that, and the responsibility of returning to his original time line, whether or not that took one more day or one more decade (it would take much, much longer), and stopping the apocalypse fell upon his shoulders. 

He's not sure entirely when it is, now. Not exactly, but he assumes it must be either approaching October, or a couple days into the month. If he's lucky, it's the first of the month. He spent the day travelling back from the other end of the city to the ruins of the academy, a backpack heavy on his shoulders, a pair of sweatpants tied on his hips and an oversized, old hoodie keeping him warm, the sleeves rolled up. He'd lost weight - too much, he thought - but when the most steady supply of food one could find was the bugs around, one didn't tend to store much fat. He'd ditched the academy uniform once it got too impractical and dirty, wearing whatever clothes he found in the ruins of old shops. He had been searching for more supplies, more food, more clean water, and he'd gone further out than usual. Today, however, he decided to call the first of October, and he headed back to spend it with his family. 

Grass was growing over their graves. He'd cleaned the place around them a bit, moved some rubble and washed away some dust. He had brought out an old chair that had been intact in another apartment down town, setting it near their graves, and he collapsed into it now. He reached into his bag, pushing past dented cans of cold food, bottles of water he was saving, paper to start fires and other supplies. His hand clasped around the neck of a liquor bottle he had found in the basement of a building - he had found plenty during the last year - and he spun the cap off. Five decided he hated the taste of alcohol, but if he drank enough then he could be blissfully unaware of everything and he could pass out and lose some hours of this time line he didn't want. He stood by Klaus' grave, because he knew Klaus wouldn't mind this. Maybe he was a ghost, standing right beside him, watching his fourteen year old brother drink himself silly and follow in his footsteps. He poured some out on his grave.

"Happy birthday to me," he muttered. He sat back on the grass, raising the bottle to his lips and looking at the crumbling academy to his side. How could he feel so homesick when he was literally at home? He longed for the harshness of Reginald's training, the way Diego whined when Five bet him in races. He wanted to hear Luther and Klaus arguing again, wanted to sit in his bedroom with Ben and bounce equations off him while he read. He wanted to hear Allison laugh as she painted her nails and he wanted to hear Vanya play her violin again, let it echo down the hallway and soothe him. He wanted his family again, and not the corpses of their adults that sat six feet below him. 

Five's face twisted in grief, his breath stuttering in his throat and nails scratching the glass bottle of liquor in his grasp. He'd give anything to hear Klaus call him a stuck up bastard, or to hear Diego's knives dig into wood as he took out his frustrations on his bedpost. He wanted to sneak out of the academy with his siblings and go to Griddy's at midnight, snickering and hushing one another for fear of Pogo catching them and alerting Reginald. He wanted to eat himself high on sugar and sprinkles. 

He couldn't, however. So he closed his eyes, gagged against whiskey, and simply thought of his home.


End file.
